Author: KnowledgeHippo
The Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and provides behind-the-scenes information on how our journalism comes together.I guess he qualifies as a Disney adult, the pejorative term for adults visiting Disney theme parks without kids in tow.Disney has 12 theme parks and two water parks around the world and I’ve been to them all. I was at Walt Disney World in Florida when the theme park reopened in July 2020 after being closed for four months during the coronavirus pandemic. And I was at Disneyland in California in 2022 when Mickey Mouse was allowed to share…
Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI who in November joined other board members to force Sam Altman, the company’s high-ranking CEO, to help found a new artificial intelligence company.The new start-up is called Safe Superintelligence. Its goal is to produce superintelligence — a machine that is smarter than humans — in a safe way, according to company spokeswoman Lulu Cheng Meservey.Dr. Sutskever, who said he regretted taking action against Mr. Altman, declined to comment. Bloomberg reported the news earlier.Dr. Sutskever, 38, left OpenAI last month and announced at the time that he would start a new project,…
A man whose thundering Dodge Charger tormented Seattle residents for months was ordered Tuesday to pay more than $83,000 in fines, the heaviest penalty the city has imposed in months of largely ineffective enforcement efforts.Miles Hudson, the driver known to many downtown residents and his more than 750,000 Instagram followers as the Belltown Hellcat, appeared in Seattle Municipal Court wearing a balaclava and sunglasses shielding his face from waiting television crews. He told Judge Faye Chess that he was working on restoring the car to its factory design.”I have documentation that my car is in the shop and parts were…
In July 2016, a heat wave hit Boston, with average daytime temperatures reaching 92 degrees for five consecutive days. A few local university students staying in town for the summer were lucky and stayed in dormitories with central air conditioning. Other students, not so much – they were stuck in older dorms with no ACJose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, a Harvard researcher at the time, decided to take advantage of this natural experiment to see how heat, and especially heat at night, affected the cognitive performance of young adults. He had 44 students take math and self-monitoring tests five days before…
Last May, Samir Bhavnani, a 47-year-old tech executive from San Diego, was planning a trip to Palm Springs, California, where he planned to propose to his girlfriend. He found the perfect spot on Vrbo: It offered a “cave spa,” a slide, and a swim-up bar, and it had plenty of five-star reviews.He decided to book two nights, at $595 a night. But somehow, the total came to about $2,300.“And $595 plus $595 does not equal $2,300,” Mr. Bhavnani said. “Taxes, hosting fees and service charges basically doubled the price. I asked the owner what the charge was and was told…
A Russian court sentenced a US Army sergeant to nearly four years in prison Wednesday for stealing about $100 from a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship and making death threats against her.Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, was arrested in the Pacific port of Vladivostok last month following a criminal complaint by the woman, who has not been publicly identified by authorities. He had traveled to Russia to visit after completing a secondment in South Korea.A statement released by a Vladivostok court said Sergeant Black had stolen the money and threatened her life during a domestic dispute. The…
Nick Wilson has been following the news of the war in Gaza closely since October. But Mr. Wilson, a Cornell student, is selective about his media diet: As a pro-Palestinian activist, he distrusts major American news reports about Israel’s campaign in Gaza.Instead, it turns to versions less familiar with them some American audiences, such as the Arabic news network Al Jazeera.”Al Jazeera is the site I go to to get an account of events that I believe will be credible,” he said.Many student protesters have said in recent interviews that they seek on-the-ground coverage of the war in Gaza, and…
Investor support for longtime Toyota Motor leader Akio Toyoda fell to its lowest level since he took the helm as shareholders questioned the extent of his control over the company.According to a filing released on Wednesday, 71.9 percent of shareholders supported Mr. Toyoda’s reappointment as Toyota’s chairman. That met the threshold needed for his re-election but was the lowest level of support for him since at least 2010, after Mr. Toyoda’s first full year as chief executive.”In the context of corporate Japan, it’s an amazing number,” Hirotaka Uchida, a partner at the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, said of the…
When five men died on June 18, 2023, in the explosion of the submarine Titan during a dive at the Titanic’s resting place, Paul-Henri Nargeolet’s knowledge was also lost. It was Nargeolet’s 38th dive on the sunken ship. Known as Mr. Titanic, he has helped recover thousands of items that have been displayed in museums and events around the world.A year later, the company he worked for as director of underwater research is preparing an expedition in July that will employ a pair of robots instead of humans in submarines looking for more treasure to unearth in the future.Jessica Sanders,…
When U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced Monday that he planned to push for a mental health warning label on social media platforms, it was met with cheers from many parents and teachers, who described a long, lonely match. wean children away from a habit that has harmed them.It received a cooler reaction from some scientists who study the relationship between social media and mental health. In interviews, several researchers said that the general warning suggested by Dr. Murthy – “social media is linked to significant mental health harms for teenagers” – is stretching and oversimplifying the scientific evidence.For…